Free Republic

Leonardo’s dragon (How did he draw a dinosaur so accurately?) by Philip Robinson Published: 7 May 2019 (GMT+10) The month of May 2019 marks the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo Da Vinci (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519). The polymath was well known for his contributions to science, history, engineering, architecture, drawing and especially painting, with his most famous painting being the Mona Lisa. For this anniversary the UK’s Royal Collection Trust is displaying some of its collection of Leonardo drawings in 12 different locations. One particular drawing is causing a stir.

ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2012) — Many fossilized dinosaurs have been found in a twisted posture. Scientists have long interpreted this as a sign of death spasms. Two researchers from Basel and Mainz now come to the conclusion that this bizarre deformations occurred only during the decomposition of dead dinosaurs. A syndrome like that as a petrified expression of death throes was discussed for the first time about 100 years ago for some vertebrate fossils, but the acceptance of this interpretation declined during the following decades. In 2007, this "opisthotonus hypothesis" was newly posted by a veterinarian and a palaeontologist....

'Hogwarts' Dragon Unveiled By Larry O'Hanlon, Animal Planet News May 24 — A dragon-like dinosaur named after Harry Potter's alma mater has performed a bit of black magic on its own family tree, say paleontologists who unveiled the "Dragon King of Hogwarts" on Monday in Albuquerque. The newly described horny-headed dinosaur Dracorex hogwartsia lived about 66 million years ago in South Dakota, just a million years short of the extinction of all dinosaurs. But its flat, almost storybook-style dragon head has overturned everything paleontologists thought they knew about the dome-head dinos called pachycephalosaurs. "What you knew about pachycephalosaurs — you...

The legendary "Sphinx" eventually found its counterpart version in archeological fossil. Chinese and American paleontologists found two distinct kinds of bone characteristics in the fossil of a sharp-mouthed mammal excavated in China's Liaoning province. The mammal's upper part makes people believe it was viviparous while its lower part looks like oviparous, reports Wen Hui Daily. The latest issue of the British magazine Nature reports the unprecedented discovery. The magazine editor as well as paleontologists marveled at the discovery and believed it might change the traditional theory on mammals evolution. Li Gang, one of the coauthors of the paper, said the...

Once dismissed, myths are winning new attention from geologists who find that they may encode valuable data about earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and other stirrings of the earth SEATTLE, WASHINGTON--James Rasmussen, owner of a funky used-record store called Bud's Jazz, and Ruth Ludwin, a seismologist at the University of Washington, Seattle, make an unlikely professional team. Late last year, they were walking down the beach near the bustling Fauntleroy ferry dock, searching for a reddish sandstone boulder. Native American legends-Rasmussen belongs to the local Duwamish people-say the boulder is haunted by a'yahos, a spirit with the body of a serpent and...

An amphibious humanlike being was reported in Karelia in 1928. The creature was repeatedly seen in the lake of Vedlozero by local residents. A group of researchers from the Petrozavodsk University arrived to investigate the case on location. Unfortunately, the findings were classified and the members of the research party eventually perished in the Gulag.

New research into the Ancient Greeks shows their knowledge of travel inspired early forms of fantasy and science fiction writing.There is a long tradition of fantasy in Greek literature that begins with Odysseus' fantastic travels in Homer's Odyssey. Dr Karen Ni-Mheallaigh, at the University of Liverpool's School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, is exploring fantasy in ancient literature, examining theories of modern science fiction writing and how these can be applied to texts from the ancient world. Dr Ni-Mheallaigh is looking at the work of 2nd century AD writer, Lucian of Samosata, who wrote True Histories, a travel narrative that...

The tusk, several teeth, and some bones of a Deinotherium giganteum, which, loosely translated means really huge terrible beast, have been found on the Greek island Crete. A distant relative to today's elephants, the giant mammal stood 15 feet (4.6 meters) tall at the shoulder, and had tusks that were 4.5 feet (1.3 meters) long. It was one of the largest mammals ever to walk the face of the Earth... To paleontologists today, the large hole in the center of the skull suggests a pronounced trunk. To the ancient Greeks, Deinotherium skulls could well be the foundation for their...

Inner Mongolia Yields New Discoveries More than 80 leading archeological experts are participating in an international conference in Chifeng, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, to exchange the latest information on Hongshan, a prehistoric relics site. Relics excavated at the Hongshan ("Red Mountain") site originated around 5000 BC to 6500 BC. Now a part of Chifeng City, the site was discovered in 1935. Some of the relics found at Hongshan have led archeologists to conclude that the heads of Chinese dragons may have been inspired by boars in addition to horses and cattle. Primitive people who struggled to survive by fishing and...

Cyclops Myth Spurred by One-Eyed Fossils? Hillary Mayell for National Geographic News February 5, 2003 Ever wonder where our worst nightmares come from? For the ancient Greeks, it may have been the fossils of giant prehistoric animals. The tusk, several teeth, and some bones of a Deinotherium giganteum, which, loosely translated means really huge terrible beast, have been found on the Greek island Crete. A distant relative to today's elephants, the giant mammal stood 15 feet (4.6 meters) tall at the shoulder, and had tusks that were 4.5 feet (1.3 meters) long. It was one of the largest mammals ever...

<p>Skull of an elephant. The animal's European ancestors had similar anatomies.</p> <p>IRAKLIO, Greece (AP) -- Researchers on the southern Greek island of Crete have unearthed the fossilized tusk, teeth and bones of a Deinotherium Gigantisimum, a fearsome elephant-like creature that might have given rise to ancient legends of one-eyed cyclops monsters.</p>

<p>IRAKLIO, Greece (AP) -- Researchers on the southern Greek island of Crete have unearthed the fossilized tusk, teeth and bones of a Deinotherium Gigantisimum, a fearsome elephant-like creature that might have given rise to ancient legends of one-eyed cyclops monsters.</p>